Apple Signs Deal With ‘Friday Night Lights’ Producer Jason Katims, Courts ‘X-Men’ Producer Simon Kinberg For New Sci-Fi Show
Apple is continuing to poach talent from all across Hollywood for their nascent film and television division, and they may have just added two names to their ever-growing list of collaborators.
The tech company is “near a deal” for a new science fiction series that hails fromSimon Kinberg, the writer/producer who’s been shepherding theX-Menfilm franchise for years. Plus, they’ve managed to lureJason Katims, the producer of beloved TV shows likeFriday Night Lights, away from his longtime home at Universal Television for a multi-year contract. Read more about that and the potential Simon Kinberg Apple series below.
At this rate, it won’t be long before everyone in Hollywood is working for Apple. Their list of clients currently includes people like Damien Chazelle, Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey, and Ronald D. Moore, and now they’ve added Jason Katims to that roster. For more than twelve years, Katims has been at Universal Television, where he created shows likeFriday Night Lights,Parenthood,About a Boy, Rise, and Hulu’sThe Path.Deadlinereports that he’s entered an exclusive production deal with Apple, where he’ll develop new shows for their streaming platform.
Meanwhile, Deadline also reports that Apple is close to locking down a new show from Simon Kinberg, who recently made his directorial debut with Fox’s upcomingX-Men: Dark Phoenix, andDavid Weil, the creator of Amazon’s Nazi-hunting seriesThe Huntwhich hasAl Pacino and Logan Lerman in lead rolesand Jordan Peele producing. Details are scarce, but the report describes the new sci-fi project as “a large-budget, ambitious, character-driven genre show” – a descriptionjustvague enough to make speculation a worthless exercise.
Production is slated to begin this summer, but since the ink isn’t dry on this contract yet, it remains to be seen if it will eventually end up slotted in with the glut of Apple’s upcoming content. In addition to shows likeTop of the Morning,Amazing Stories,Little America,See,Foundation, and about a dozen more, the company is also stepping into the feature film arena withOn The Rocks, their debut drama that reunites director Sofia Coppola with herLost in Translationstar Bill Murray. Their TV platform is rumored to launch sometime this year, and the original showswill be free on Apple devices; we’re still not sure whether their movies will be heading to theaters or going direct to that same platform.
